Blower Door Test

To begin our weatherization project with the Clean Energy Works Portland program, we had our assigned contractor come in and perform a "blower door test" on our house. This contraption is sealed over the front door, the house is pressurized, then they turn on a fan in the door and see how fast all the air gets sucked out of the house.

A house of our age and size should be 950 and our house is around 1,550. Most of the air leakage is coming from the basement, probably the crawlspace under the living room at the front of the house. Here's what the test looked like:

 

As you can see, Phoenix slept through the whole thing.

Next step: getting the weatherization work plan done, which for us could include a new water heater (either tankless or super high efficiency) and a new furnace.  

Check out this new video about the program that highlights the Community Workforce Agreement portion of the program, which provides contracting opportunities for minority contractors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8aDuGbmiz4.  Keep your fingers crossed that they get the large grant they applied for which would enable them to expand the program to 100,000 homes in our region.